Sticky #35

 

First, let me apologize for the size of today’s sticky.  I scanned it with a bunch of other stickies and if I shrink it down any further it gets blurry and hard to read.  That has never happened before – I think it’s the light blue.  I might just have to stick with purple.

Today’s sticky is from Pike’s Revenge.  Yeah, I know you thought it was Fie Eoin because Kindra is in it, but Pike’s Revenge is the sequel to Fie Eoin, and although she is no longer the main character she doesn’t exactly hide herself away.  I almost used this sticky as my Father’s Day sticky, but it just didn’t give me the same warm, fuzzy feeling that Lane did.  Not that Kindra can’t give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.  I’m finding that in the re-write her relationship with Gar is a lot more warm and fuzzy than I initially thought.  Her relationship with Pike is even less warm and fuzzy than I thought, and I have to admit I have really enjoyed both parts of the book.  And poor Barracuda is caught in the middle of that hostility, and is the least hostile person you could meet (you may recall Sticky #7 in which Kindra’s daughter harasses him).  But don’t let him fool you like he fooled Kindra.  He’s not weak.

Sticky #34

 

It’s another really long sticky for this weekend, in part to celebrate the 4th of July.  And for the 4th, Daphne - of Ask Daphne fame - held a writing-prompt contest.  The three prompts were:

 - I didn’t expect to actually go swimming…
- As American as apple pie…
- The heat from the grill made it seem a mirage…

At first I was thinking Fie Eoin, but to tell you the truth I’m a little burnt out on Fie Eoin right now.  So while Sipi’s whale-fishing dip in the ocean might be interesting for the first prompt, I was actually leaning towards Holly Thompson and the second prompt.  I ignored the third prompt completely, until after I tried writing an apple pie story that was a miserable flop.  And then it came to me: Holly sees creatures, she thinks she’s crazy, it would seem a mirage… Bingo.  And I spent the weekend furiously writing about Holly, Phooka, and the Manticore (when I wasn’t hanging out with the grandfolks, that is).  Above is a couple of stickies I started at work, and the rest of the story can be found at Phooka Tales LJ.  A little 4th-flavor coming at you from Scotland.

Sticky #33

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.  It has been hitting 100*F here already so I’ve been spending most of my time at the beach.  The problem with stickies at the beach is that the sand sticks to them, so it’s a good thing I uploaded this before I went to the beach yesterday.  Today’s sticky is from Fie Eoin, as you may be able to tell if you’ve read a number of my stickies.  I decided last month that I needed a way to get the other six tribes into the book, so instead of letting Kindra mope about Fie Eoin in Chapter 5 I’ve sent her on a mission to Fie Ronna, the tribe that makes all of the practical goods the Seven Tribes use.  Since this is a completely new thing for FE, I had to figure out where to place the Fie Ronna scenes in the midst of already written scenes in Chapter 5.  This is a list of the scenes and where Fie Ronna’s scenes will (probably) go.

Sticky #32

Happy Father’s Day!  I was looking through my stickies this week, planning on putting up something about a father (or maybe a few stickies about fathers) when I ran across this little gem.  It’s technically not a sticky.  It’s a page in one of my small writing folders, but it is the beginning of the sticky obsession for me.  I realized very early on in NaNoWriMo 2005 that if I didn’t have time to write a whole scene, I could write a little blurb in my notebook or on a scrap piece of paper and it would help me remember later what I was going to write.  Of course scrap paper has a tendency to get lost, so when I got the job at the lab just before NaNo ‘06 and I wasn’t allowed to take my notebook in I would write my little notes on the stickies that I always had in my lab coat.  But it was really NaNo ‘05 and this “sticky” that started it.

So this week’s ”sticky” is from Lane’s Girl, my NaNo ‘05 novel, and is one of the last times we see Lane before he becomes a father (and a very good father, even if it is only for several years).  So Happy Father’s Day to Lane, Gar, my own doddy, and all the other father’s out there.

Sticky #31

 

Today’s sticky is not actually from a story that I have written, but is a note I jotted down because I thought it was interesting.  I subscribe to American Scientist’s Science In The News Weekly, and every week they send me an email full of interesting stories published during the week.  This past week they sent me an email with a link to a story about the Taino – a native people of Hispaniola – who build houses on stilts over lagoons.  While I don’t want to write about the Taino, it did give me an interesting idea to set a future novel in a stilted village above a lagoon.  Maybe nothing will come of this sticky, but now I have it just in case.

Sticky #30

To celebrate the 30th sticky on the SNS blog, I have chosen a star-shaped sticky just for today.  I keep these little star stickies in my purse – they were a gift from a friend – and whenever I get an idea I jot it down on a star.  I tend to also jot a lot of phone numbers, small grocery lists, and directions on these guys.  And of course the points always fold over.

Today’s sticky is from Fie Eoin, and was a little jot of where I stopped writing the story before NaNoWriMo started last year.  I don’t like editing as much as writing, so while I’m currently in the editing stages of Fie Eoin, I tend more towards re-writing entire chapters from scratch.  It probably takes a lot longer, but I’ve learned so much about writing in the past seven years since I started Fie Eoin that sometimes it is easier to re-write the whole thing.

Also, there are no kelpies in Fie Eoin.  That was a typo because it was NaNo time and there are kelpies in Phooka Tales.

Sticky #29

Today I was planning on putting up a sticky that I wrote in Key West last week - which is why I didn’t get a sticky up last weekend - but as it turns out Key West is much too relaxing to write anything, even stickies.  Instead I bring you a sticky I wrote at work the week before I left on my vacation. 

As you know from one of last week’s stickies, Kindra needs something more to do than just walk around Fie Eoin after her sister leaves.  I sent her to Fie Ronna for pants, since Kaye stole a pair of hers, and they only have about two pairs of each clothing item to begin with.  After all, how many pairs of clothes do you need in a tribal society?  Especially when you are a warrior.  I think a pair to get bloody and a pair to wear while you clean the bloodied ones is enough.  But if you have just been in a battle, and your sister steals your clean pair, then you need another pair of pants.  But who do you get pants from if you spend all of your time fighting and training and hunting?  Well, in Fie Eoin’s case, you get them from Fie Ronna.  And if you are an Odion, you get them from the chief of Fie Ronna, or in this case his wife.  It took me a while to decide on this – I kept wanting the person to be Kindra’s aunt, but as it turns out Kindra’s aunt doesn’t live in Fie Ronna.  I’m still not even sure she has an aunt.  That will probably be argued on another sticky.

I also like the name Abigail too much, and have named a key (very similar) character in two stories Abigail.  In Phooka Tales they mostly call her Abby, but I still would rather change it in Fie Eoin to something else.  Anyone have a suggestion for a name?

Sticky #28

Today’s stickies are all from Fie Eoin, and they are on very small stickies this week.  I changed jobs recently (well, I changed areas of the lab I work in – I’m still with the same company) and all I could find were these tiny stickies for the first couple weeks of the new job.  I have since found a large pad of dark purple stickies that do not have the watermark on the back and I’ve switched back to those.  There is only so much you can write on a tiny sticky.

Speaking of stickies, I have found a website called www.qualitylogoproducts.com that carries personalized sticky notes!  They come in different shapes!  I was thinking of getting some with SNS on them, but I would have to get regular sticky note shaped ones, since the website is about sticky notes.  Or maybe book shaped stickies, since it is also about the books I write.  I was thinking I could also get the clover shaped stickies with Fie Eoin on them, since if you head over to Sticky Note Stories and click on Fie Eoin’s page you can read the little short story “The Clover”. 

If only they made spear-shaped sticky notes…

Sticky #27

I am putting today’s sticky “note” at the bottom of the post, instead of the top, because I don’t want you to get lost in the giant purple mass that you see below without some explanation.  Read them from left to right by rows (there are black lines between each row), and I apologize for the watermark on the last one.  I didn’t realize that was on the back of that pack of stickies until after I wrote on the front and flipped it over.  3M lawyers, please see the disclaimer below. 

I have been writing Fie Eoin for seven years this summer, and pretty much from the beginning of those seven years I have had some idea of Aleda, the mother goddess of the Seven Tribes (also known as the Seven Tribes of Aleda, the language spoken being Aledan, ect.).  And it wasn’t until earlier this week that I learned that Aleda was actually a woman from Gaerlom (for more on Gaerlom, see Stickies Five, Six, Seventeen, and Nineteen).  She was the mother of the first Faye child (See Stickies Six and Twelve for more on the Faye) and the one who took all of the Faye children from Gaerlom to live in the mountains without fear of being killed or mutilated by the tribe that feared them.

The stickies below are Aleda’s death, and how she became known as a goddess, “the mother of us all”.

Well, I do hope this makes up for not posting in a couple of weeks.  And I do apologize for that – my new puppy gave me a neck injury that took forever to heal.  I also apologize in advance for not posting next weekend, but my parents will be in town and I only see them a few times a year.

Also, a disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with 3M and their products, Post-It Notes. Nor am I affiliated with any other sticky note manufacturer or distributor.  I just use sticky notes more than the average person. Please don’t sue me.

Sticky #26

This sticky shows the entrance of one of my favorite mythical creatures in Phooka Tales, the Kelpie, who also makes an appearance in Lane’s Girl as the symbol of the Morgan Family.  In the book, each creature represents some part of Holly, and the Kelpie is her desire to give up.  It is also connected to a very interesting back-story with the daughter of the couple she is staying with in Scotland.  And let’s face it, I couldn’t set the second half of the book on the shores of the Loch Ness without making one creature crawl out of the depths (alas, Nessie does not have a cameo in Phooka Tales).